Celtic - A Squad Building Exercise

As it is the tail end of the season I decided to get a few more youth players out for first team football. The selection process in deciding where they go is as follows; squad status, league status, competition in position. Tony Ralston is the most interesting one here for me as he joins Jamie McCart at Dundee Utd. McCart tipped to be a star for the future is impressing at Dundee Utd and coaches informed me that he is now a ‘good Scottish Premiership defender’. A season a Kaiserslautern may be in order next season, something I am eager to utilise.



Three more transfers have been arranged for the end of the season. Marco Friedl and Jai Quitongo will come and a most likely be loaned out to gain first team experience. The real gem here though is Emerson Hyndman who will cost £4mil from Bournemouth. He will join former teammate Moussa Dembele (and hopefully Paddy Roberts) in the first team squad.



This month was all about prioritising. Hearts result was unexpected as we had a full strength side, but these things happen. We wrapped up the title in the following match at home vs. Partick Thistle, a beauty from Captain Scott Brown securing the title. In both Kilmarnock and Ross County games we heavily rotated to prioritise the Fiorentina (3rd in Seire A) and Scottish Cup Semi. In Italy we lined up 4141 and held out won then went 4411 in the home leg and dominated from the off. Up next in our European adventure is a tough tie vs. Athletic Bilbao.

The most interesting tactical change here was using Scott Brown as a DM, CM or BBM as opposed to BWM. His aggression sees him booked/sent off far too often, compared to real life figures its insane. His yellow cards went form 6 in 8 games to just 1 in 8.

A great end to the season to set us up for two big cup finals. We fought hard to get through against a solid Bilbao side sitting 7th in La Liga. With Hearts in between the only player who started the 3 games in a row was Craig Gordon, I rested the starting XI. Once that was sealed we came up against Rangers and finished the season with a 100% record over them thanks to a Leigh Griffiths hat-trick to take him to top of the goal chart. Have a look at the stats from the game. Again the full squad was rested for the Dundee game.

We finished the season on 96 points, just incredible. We romped home with a lead of 18 points, scoring an impressive 92 goals. I not only overtook Dundee we finished top in the possession charts. What I noticed about Dundee was they play with a narrow 5 man midfield, meaning they get quite good pass stats and possession. Another interesting one was the cross completion, I always thought it was poor - obviously not in comparison.

Its good to see Hibs come up and Killie go down, this means we will have a much stronger league next year.

Love the detail that you are putting into this mate. It really does make it a great read.

Thanks @Fola glad you're enjoying it!

On the run up to the final I kept an eye on the Man Utd line up. I figured they would line up in a 4411 formation so to counteract it I was initially going to two with a 4141. The. I thought about it, there was going to be a lot of space in-between defence and midfield to exploit. So I pushed James Forrest and Tom Rogic up to try and work some magic.

At half time I noticed Forrest was very isolated, he only attempted 11 passes. So I brought on Callum McGregor as a wide midfielder. We eventually equalised an Rogic became a CM and Scott Sinclair pushed up in the hope his pace could get us a winner. It wasn't to be, we stretched the game out to penalties but poor finishing cost us.

End of Season Review
Scottish Premiership
We were outstanding, we racked up an incredible 96 points. We won all but 7 matches and the majority of them were what I call a tactical loss. By that I mean before or after a CL/EL fixture where the squad was heavily rotated. Another loss came in a run of 10 games in December. But enough about losses. What about the highlights? A 9-0 win over Rangers costing Mark Warburton his job, and winning all 4 derby fixtures. A 3-0 win up at Pitodrie over the runners up. Leigh Griffiths netting 4 agains Ross County.

Domestic Cups
Not much to say on these, both wrapped up relatively comfortably. Partick Thistle gave us a scare in the Scottish Cup as it took us a replay and a last minute winner from Moussa Dembele to send us into the quarter final.

Champions League
We coasted through the qualifiers and into the riches of the group stage. The first round of fixtures made it look as if we were there to make up the numbers but in the final 3 games we drew with Juve , spanked Spurs 7-1 and put Leverkusen to the sward in Germany to progress to the Europa League last 32.

Europa League
What a run this was, we just never seemed to get the luck of the draw. We played to 4 sides from Germany, Italy, Spain and England. And somehow managed to reach the final. After and incredible comeback from 2-0 down we eventually lost on penalties .

Squad
Incredibly there wasn't a single poor player in the whole squad, no-one averaged under 7.00. This as you can imagine is a managers dream problem. Even the back-up keepers made the step up. I had two strikers who scored over 30 goals each and Scott Sinclair managed 23.

Awards




Finances

Superb work with this Sean! I'm eager to see what happens season two

Thanks @Dan I'm really eager to get into it.

A lot has happened since the season came to a close. The board upgraded both club training and youth facilities. The training facilities are currently classed as 'excellent' and the youth facilities 'great'. This should help us produce more of our own players and better players to filter out through Scottish football.



Great news for the Scottish game as we are climbing our way back up the rankings, we need to move up one more place to have an effect on the qualification places. Celtic also shot up 22 spaces, hopefully the other clubs can help the nation coefficient this year.







There was a lot of transfer activity. Lets start with the players who left; firstly Kolo Toure chose to retire at the end of the season, possibly due to lack of game time towards the closing stages. Doris De Vries also retired. Bailly, Allan, Ciftci, Janko and Boyata all left and raised £3.25 mil between them. None were going to be anywhere near the first team. A lot of players left on loan, monthly thoughout Scotland.





The first arrival was Jai Quintogo, a quick striker who will spend the season on loan at top flight side St Johnstone. The finished 5th last year so he should be part of a good side this season.



Ederson Hyndman has been my most expensive singing yet. He cost £4 million from Bournemouth and will line up with former Fulham teammates Paddy Roberts (who's loan was extended) and Moussa Dembele this year. He looks a good all-round player and I expect him to develop well under the tutor of Scott Brown.

Phase 4 of my scouting network was set up early pre-season. Leigertwood will cover the Caribbean region looking for talented youngsters, Ayala will be looking ofr the best young players in South America and Da Silva North America.



A host of players have arrived on free transfers. The first - genuine competition for Craig Gordon. Lovre Kalinic will be my first choice keeper in years to come and challenge Gordon for the jersey this season. His passing and first touch isn't great so that is something we will have to work on.



The versatile Marco Friedl joined and was loaned out to feeder club Kaiserlautern. On reflection I should have sent him elsewhere as I don't see him getting much game time.



He doesn't fit my singing policy but he was one I couldn't ignore. He's the typical box-to-box midfielder and managed an incredible 17 assists last season for Burnley.



Another player who impressed so much last season is Nemanja Maksimovic. A great season for Astana seen him become a full international for Serbia. He couldn't get a work permit so will spend the season in Italy.



Matthew Knox is another example of picking out the best in Scottish youth. He will spend the year in the Scottish Championship with Dundee Utd - a step up from L1 at Livingston.

Could one of the Mods please lock this.

I'm not happy with the slipping standard of writing towards the end of the season and pre-season. It will continue in a fresh thread as it has strayed from the topics and styles I originally wanted to discuss.

Thanks.